U21 SWFC 2011 - Match Report

On Sunday last, March 6th, in Wolfe Tone Park, Bantry, Glengarriff’s U21 team again made history as they took on St. Colums in the SWFC ‘B’ Grade for the very first time. Unfortunately, on this occasion they could not progress to the next round as they were defeated on a score line of; St. Colums 1-11 to Glengarriff’s 0-11.

As the crowd built before throw in, you could fell the anxiety from both sets of fans as nobody really knew what kind of encounter was about to unfold. A final crowd of about four or five hundred, of which 75% were St. Colums fans, watched on, as round about 2:35p.m. the ball was thrown in.The Glen men,straight from the off went on the attack & were unlucky not to score as an Eamonn O’Sullivan effort veered narrowly wide. This set the tempo for the opening five minutes, where last year’s Cork Minor Football Star, Matthew O’Shea, opened the scoring in the third minute followed moments later with a fine point from, Shane Healy. St. Colums finally came to life in the sixth minute when a goal bound effort came back off the post & the rebound was converted to the net, for what would be the game’s only goal. They followed this with a point from their next attack, before a long ball over the top of the St. Colums defence set, Shaun O’Sullivan, through, but he saw his low shot just shave the outside of the upright & out for a goal kick. This got the Glen motoring again & from the resulting kickout, Matthew O’Shea, added Glengarriff’s third of the afternoon. Colums again responded with a pointed free at the other end and would have to wait another 17mins for their next score as Glengarriffadded a pointed free & a great individual fisted point both from, Shaun O’Sullivan, before Ciaran McElhinney added his first ever championship point in the 25thmin, which wrapped up the scoring for the glen in the first half. The next 5 or 6mins saw both teams scrapping to hold onto hard won position around the middle, but right on the whistle for half time Colums got their second point from play, to leave the scores tied at the break; 0-06 to 1-03.

The second half started like the fist with the Glen on the attack, but with four wides in the first six minutes this handed the initiative to St. Colums who notched up three unanswered points before, Ciaran McElhinney, slotted over in the 43rdmin to register his second of the game to settle the Glen. Colums responded with another pointed free, but Glengarriff then came into their own and recorded four unanswered points, which included 2 pointed frees from Captain, James Horgan. Then in the 54th minute, Shane Healy, received a pass from, Ciaran McElhinney, which put him through on goal, only to be brought down inside the large rectangle, but bizarrely, the referee gave a 14yard free, which, Shaun O’Sullivan, dully converted to tie the game again. The resulting kickout was again won by the men in Green & Red and it was again the combination of McElhinney to Healy that split the Colums defence & put Healy through on goal, but his goal shot rose high and just over the crossbar. This was to be the Glens last score, but with five minutes to go they looked good to hold out. It wasn’t to be as St. Colums found another gear and piled on the pressure to the Glengarriff defence which saw them rack up four points in the closing moments to run out winners and progress to the next round with a final score of; Glengarriff 0-11 to St. Colums 1-11.

It was devastation at the final whistle, for our young history makers, after months of hard training, in rain, hail and snow their journey had been halted at the first, by our near neighbours.